Anyone have experience in Aluminium wiring

[Hickin]

Hi all,

I work for a warehouse automation company, main office is in the USA, but i'm based in the UK.
So earlier in the day my boss asked me to go to a place called Cheb in Czeck.

New system being built he say's, Electro-Mechanical snagging he say's, Oh yeah, it's all in Ally, including the PLC control cables he adds on the end....Wow and WTF and Why....60% less conductive but so much cheaper .

So after the initial shock, I realised in 30 years I have never worked on an installation that has Aluminium cables, so my question is - Has anyone had any experiance with inspecting this type of installation?

I know that Aluminium and copper are dissimilar metals, and a quick Google reveals bi-metalic connectors, anti-corrosion greases, etc. but Google is not the regulatory body, nor experianced in actual installations lol, and all I find in the brown book is the comment 'connectors must be suitable' bla bla.

Your advise would be greatly appreciated please.

Eddie.

 

[Carolina]

I work almost exclusively with Al nowadays as it's way cheaper, it's mostly used for lighting circuits, it's tricky wiring to work with if you don't terminate it -which is something almost no electricians do where I live- but it's fine if you properly crimp all the ends.

Splicing by hand is also somewhat hard as the wires feel almost slippery (stranded), but using lever insertion connectors works fine.

There's a difference in ampacity of course, with a cross-section of 0.75 sq.mm an aluminium wire can only handle about 4 amps safely, assuming it shares a conduit with 2 other wires. For resi lighting this is more than enough, as all new apartments are built assuming people will solely use energy saving light bulbs or arrays.

For wall sockets I've seen both CCA and pure Al, depends on how much the contractors cheap out, the limitation is you can only fit 6 and 10A sockets, which were pretty much obsolete but never phased out. In practice most "professionals" install a 16A socket and assume no one's gonna plug a heater or anything with a high current draw to it. A game of chance.

There are laws and regulations in the US and UK so I doubt you'll find the hack jobs I deal with. Plus, industrial isn't the same as resi, I guess it's fine for PLC travelers and signal wires that don't handle high currents.

 

[James]

Aluminium work hardens much quicker than copper, so avoid flexing it too much as it can break.